Eric Clapton speaks up for J.J. Cale

San Diego, CA _ Spotlight-shunning singer-songwriter J.J. Cale (left) shared the stage with legendary guitarist Eric Clapton, a longtime fan, at the San Diego Sports Arena on March 15, 2007. Cale, a longtime Valley Center resident, died July 26, 2013, in a La Jolla hospital following a heart attack. _ John Gastaldo/The San Diego Union-Tribune
— John Gastaldo

San Diego, CA _ Spotlight-shunning singer-songwriter J.J. Cale (left) shared the stage with legendary guitarist Eric Clapton, a longtime fan, at the San Diego Sports Arena on March 15, 2007. Cale, a longtime Valley Center resident, died July 26, 2013, in a La Jolla hospital following a heart attack. _ John Gastaldo/The San Diego Union-Tribune
— John Gastaldo

Eric Clapton was devastated last summer when he learned that J.J. Cale — his musical idol, close friend and periodic collaborator — had died here of a heart attack at the age of 74. But the English blues-rock legend was able to quickly transform his grief into a heartfelt musical tribute to Cale, the longtime Valley Center resident who wrote two of Clapton’s biggest hits of the 1970s, “After Midnight” and “Cocaine.”

The result is “Eric Clapton & Friends: The Breeze, An Appreciation of JJ Cale.” The 16-song album will be released Tuesday by Encinitas-based Surfdog Records. It features such high-profile musicians as Willie Nelson, Tom Petty, John Mayer, Mark Knopfler and the Allman Brothers Band’s Derek Trucks. Among the other guests on “The Breeze” are some of Cale’s longtime musical pals from his native Oklahoma, along with erstwhile Clapton band guitarist Albert Lee, former San Diego bass great Nathan East and Cale’s wife of 18 years, singer-guitarist Christine Lakeland.

Eric Clapton & Friends, "Call Me the Breeze"

But the real star is Cale’s timeless, wonderfully earthy songs, which on "The Breeze" include such gems as "Magnolia," "Cajun Moon" and "I Got the Same Old Blues" (a song previously covered by everyone from Clapton and Bryan Ferry to Lynyrd Skynyrd and Captain Beefheart). Cale's seamless blend of rock, blues, country and swing remains a marvel of laid-back concision and understatement. He had a unique ability to achieve deep artistic eloquence with deceptive simplicity, to make aural poetry without ever using a single note or lyric that wasn’t absolutely essential, and to make all of it sound relaxed and utterly natural.

“I felt compelled to honor the memory of J.J., because he had meant so much to me. It’s a personal mission, really,” said Clapton, the only musician to be inducted three times into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

“Sometimes I’ve thought J.J. ought to be better, or more widely, appreciated, not just in America, but everywhere. So I’ve always enjoyed playing his music and letting people know that he’s there. He doesn’t need me — he never needed me — to do that. But I was always compelled to. When he passed, I felt I needed to say: ‘Thank you.’ (This album) was a way for me to say thank you and to invite other people to thank him.”

Clapton and the perpetually spotlight-shunning Cale earned a Grammy Award for their joint 2006 album, “The Road to Escondido.” They became close after bonding around 1980 at the Calabasas home of former Clapton band guitarist Albert Lee.

“There was almost an understanding between us that I was the follower; I don’t know if J.J. would have seen it that way, but that’s how I did,” Clapton said, speaking by phone from London.

“The first time I sat down and tried to get to know him was at Albert’s. We spent most of that day together and he was completely different from what I’d been led to believe. I thought he’d be introverted and shy. He was funny and he liked to talk. He talked a blue streak when he was with comfortable company, and I loved it! I laughed, a lot.”

Noted guitar maker Danny Ferrington was also a guest at Lee's home the day Clapton and Cale bonded.

"It was so funny," recalled Ferrington, who has crafted custom-made guitars for Clapton, George Harrison, Kurt Cobain and other rock stars. "Eric had never met John and he just revered him. So Eric just sat there at first, and me and Cale were jabbering like crazy, because we were such good friends. Eric was like a deer in the headlights, watching us. Because Cale would go: 'Ferrington, you're so full of b.s.! And I'd say: 'Cale. You don’t know what you're talking about!'

"Eric said at Cale's memorial service that he had two heroes: (Delta blues pioneer) Robert Johnson and Cale. Eric really did worship John. He was just one of those rare, miraculous, original guys, and Eric loved the naturalness and 'low-key-ness' Cale had."

After his band, Cream, broke up in late 1968, Clapton co-founded the short-lived super group Blind Faith, which imploded by the end of 1969. He then teamed up with the rootsy American band Delaney & Bonnie, who in turn introduced him to Cale's music, via "After Midnight," a 1966 Cale single that had almost vanished without a trace.

It was love at first hearing for Clapton, who found out more about Cale from Oklahoma bassist Carl Radle, a member of Clapton's next-short-lived band, Derek & The Dominoes.

"The construction of 'After Midnight' was great and it had everything," recalled Clapton, who scored an international solo hit with the song in late 1970. "The thing that summed up J.J. for me is it had a little country, a little blues, it was rock and there was this guitar part that was baffling. That has always been the fascinating part; I still don’t think we got it right (on my version). I’ve always been in awe of J.J.’s technique... He was a rhythm guitar player and a great lead guitar player, too. But when he played rhythm, it was very difficult to get it and know what he was doing.

"When we (recorded) it, me and Delaney both did (the guitar part) it at same time, and it was a really difficult claw-hammer (picking) thing. I thought: 'This is too hard,' so we made a meal out of it. What got me is that it appeared to be a very complex track and I was just intrigued, and thought: 'I’ve got to try and get this (right). Cale was coming from this very soulful white music. It was at Delaney's insistence that I did ('After Midnight'), and that was probably one of the first songs we decided to record. And that began my association with J.J., really."

“The Breeze” takes its name from Cale’s classic song, “Call Me the Breeze,” which was popularized by Lynryd Skynyrd in the mid-1970s. The idea for “The Breeze” tribute album was born early last August, 30,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean, when Clapton began his journey from England to Oceanside, where Cale was quietly buried at a private funeral. He died July 26, 2013.

“On my way to the service, I had this thought of doing this project,” Clapton, 69, recalled. “Flying from London to Los Angeles, I had nothing else to do but to think: ‘What would be a fitting tribute?’

“So, when I saw Christine and (longtime Cale manger and booking agent) Mike Kappus at the service, having paid my respects, I discreetly asked as soon as I could if I could have their blessing to do it. And then I just began recording in Ohio. I have a house in Columbus, where my wife’s folks come from, and I built a little studio there. It was easy as pie, having gone to the funeral and then back to Columbus, to go into the studio. In two weeks, we cut something like 24 (songs)... It was fast and furious and driven by the energy we had.”

The recording sessions then moved to Los Angles last September, although a few of the musical guests — such as country-music icon Nelson, who was in Nashville — recorded their parts in other cities.

Clapton made a point of including Lakeland at the Los Angeles sessions. She met Cale in 1977 in Nashville, joined his band the same week, and was his constant companion ever since. She shares vocals with Clapton on “Crying Eyes,” the gently captivating Cale ballad that closes “The Breeze.”

“There were definitely a few tears flowing during the session for ‘Crying Eyes’,” bassist East said, speaking from Fiji. “Eric wanted to make sure Christine was happy... He wanted to keep J.J.’s music alive in as pure a fashion as it could be recorded.”

Prior to the recording, Lakeland gave Clapton a CD of unreleased Cale songs, several of which are featured on “The Breeze.” Virtually no one else had heard them before and she knew Cale and his music better than anyone. Accordingly, she was the only one to detect a subtle error Tom Petty made singing an incorrect lyric while recording a song for "The Breeze."

“Eric was very conscientious,” Lakeland said, speaking from her Valley Center home. “He wanted to make sure I thought he was doing well with John’s music... He made me feel as if my opinion mattered, even if I didn’t think that. It was a really nice feeling. He made me feel like my two cents worth was worth a whole lot more than two cents.”

In hindsight, Lakeland noted, Clapton's decision to have her on hand for the making of much of “The Breeze” was pivotal in enabling her to deal with her grief.

“I look back now, a year later, and see I would not have made it through those few weeks (after Cale’s death and funeral) without that support system,” she said of Clapton and the other musicians on the album. “I don’t know if they realized what a support system they were creating, but it made it possible for me to breathe.”

She wasn't the only one using the musical catharsis provided by making "The Breeze" to channel their grief. That observation comes from East, who was Clapton's bassist from the mid-1980s to 2004 and toured again with him earlier this year for concerts in Japan, Singapore and Dubai.

"It really felt like a way to get the healing process moving forward and address it head on, much like the (Clapton-penned) song 'Tears in Heaven' did when Eric's son, Conor, passed away" (in 1991 at the age of four)," East noted.

"It does speak a lot about Eric's character that he had Christine be so involved. That's one of the things I love about him. As iconic and accomplished as he is, he's still so humble. He was very respectful to Christine... he was looking over to her for her approval on a lot of things. If we did a take and she liked it, that was one of the things he wanted to do, make sure she was happy."

Lakeland agreed.

"I'm biased," she said, "but Eric really shines as a producer... He got great performances out of people and he was very concerned with this whole tribute being something he was happy with. At the same time, he was concerned that I feel good about it. There was so much thought and feeling put into it, by pretty much everyone, with Eric definitely leading the way."

For longtime fan Clapton, the allure of Cale and his songs is both simple and complex.

"His music is pure rock 'n' roll, not pop," Clapton said. It's true rock 'n' roll. If that’s what you're looking for, it's safe music, it's true, it's honest and very, very deep. It's deep enough to listen to a thousand times, and there's not much that can take that close analysis.

"As a musician, I've analyzed it and analyzed it. I've looked at his stuff from every possible angle — from enjoyment, to inspiration, to being investigative — to find out how he does it. And I still don’t get all the lyrics half the time! I'm still not sure what he singing about, and that fascinates me, that he was that unconcerned about getting his message across. I always believed he did it purely for himself, and that’s the greatest enjoyment of all."

The notoriously press-shy Cale confirmed as much in his first interview with U-T San Diego in 1990, a year after he and Lakeland bought a rural home on a three-acre lot in Valley Center. The community's isolation and small size greatly appealed to him.

"There are musicians and there are musicians, and I was never an entertainer," Cale said at the time, speaking over lunch at a nondescript family restaurant near Escondido. "I was mainly a songwriter; I wasn't much of an entertainer...

"People are familiar with my songs, especially through Eric Clapton. But I have a hard-time drawing a crowd, because I have been a songwriter. I've never sold a lot of records; my music's gotten more famous than I am."

Cale smiled.

"I can stand up and talk to all these people at this restaurant," he said. "And I bet you there wouldn't be one person here that knew who I was — or cared."

But Cale's beloved anonymity was put to the test 16 years later. It was then that Clapton was a house guest in Valley Center, where he and Cale prepared for the 2006 Clapton/Cale album, "The Road to Escondido."

"You gotta remember there's hardly any town in Valley Center," Cale told U-T San Diego in a late 2006 interview.

"What's really ironic is I go to Escondido almost every day to get gas or groceries, and people think I'm some retired guy walking around. The week Eric was here, we'd go eat at Denny's or IHOP or wherever ... and anywhere we walked in, everybody recognized him, I mean, we're talking autographs ... we couldn't eat. That's one of the reasons I didn't like the title `The Road to Escondido,' because I don't want to (deal with) that."

To hear Cale tell it in his 2006 U-T san Diego interview, Clapton essentially lured him into making their joint album, by first asking him to produce Clapton's next solo album. After they'd recorded a few songs, Clapton eased Cale into accepting his proposal that the album be by both of them, rather than Clapton alone.

Asked if he would have agreed, from the outset. to make a joint album with Clapton, Cale offered an emphatic response: "No!"

He then elaborated: "Not because of Eric, but ... I'm perfectly satisfied doing what it is I do. And I've noticed that because Eric is in the big time and up there with the greats ... there are a whole lot more people involved with what he does than with what I do. ...

"I'm pretty much retired; I've done everything I wanted to do. ... This whole idea was Eric's. ... He recorded those two songs of mine ('Cocaine' and 'After Midnight') and kept me from having to get a job and gave me an income, so this was my payback to him. ... After the whole project was done and it came out the way it did, I kind of thought Eric snuck in ... and tried to raise my profile a bit."

Clapton laughed with delight upon hearing Cale's take on how "The Road to Escondido" became a reality.

"You see, it takes one bull----er to know another!" Clapton said with a guffaw. "But in truth — and my wife can bear witness to this, because she was with me when John came to play at the ('Crossroads') guitar Festival in Texas in 2005 — I said: 'John, I'd like to make a record with you; I'd like you to produce my album.' That was the original request. I said: 'We'll do it next year and in the year between now and then, we'll try and write songs. But I want it to sound like your production.'

"As much as he laid blame at my door, when it came to it, I took Simon (Climie), my co-producer with me, and Simon was working on Pro-Tools (to record us,) just in case we got lost, so everything was (low-key) But, bit by bit, J.J. relinquished his production seat. He said: 'My ears are no good anymore. I can't tell how to balance all this stuff.' And it sort of shifted and became a duo album."

So, Clapton didn't have a duo album in mind from the start?

"No," he replied. "In absolute truth, I didn't lure him. It wasn’t a trap! It evolved into what it was. Where I did slip up was, I couldn't write anything worthy of the project. And he wrote something like 20 songs, while I wrote one song about my kids while I was at his house (in Valley Center). I wanted him on the (recording studio) floor with the musicians, not in the control room, and it was going to be difficult for him to be in two places at one time. Simon, J.J. and me produced it, really."

Clapton laughed again when asked about the time he spent at Cale and Lakeland's way off-the-radar home.

"He was a curmudgeon! I'd have to get on him about fixing the shower in the bathroom!" said Clapton, his voice dancing with delight at the memory.

"He lived — it wasn't high on the hog, it was the opposite of that. It was pretty frugal and I felt very honored to be there... The (agreement) was I'd put some songs into the mix and so would he. And, in the end, I didn't have anything; it was all him. So, he said: 'If you're going to learn (these songs), you'd better come here (to Valley Center).' So I went to school and sat with him and learned the shape of these songs, and how to sing them. When we had some down time, I'd have to convince him to come and sit and watch TV."

In making "The Breeze," Clapton sought to be as reverent as possible to Cale and his music. It is by design that most of the album's 16 songs stay true, almost note for note, to Cale's original versions, yet are not quite the same. Clapton's largely one-man demo recordings of the songs provided a musical foundation that was then carefully rebuilt from the ground up.

"That was one of the things we had to make a decision about, quite early on, because you can't go half way into this and realize you’ve taken the wrong road," he said.

"I felt the best course of action would be to try and make it sound like J.J., in the knowledge that wouldn't be possible anyway. We did a lot of things where (co-producer) Simon (Climie) would put a Pro-Tools (computer) program on top of John's songs. And, bit by bit, we put layers of stuff on, keyboards, guitars, drums, and take John out, so a facsimile was created. And we'd play with that, with the key and length of the track. It would be the same; we just replaced all the instruments. And where appropriate, we'd match what he'd done to try to emulate that and let the moment and the personality (of the guest musicians) take over. I try to sing like John, but I still felt we got to a place where we achieved other things."

Lead vocals are provided by Clapton and six other singers, including Tom Petty, Willie Nelson and John Mayer, while no fewer than 13 guitarists are featured. How, exactly, did Clapton match the songs and the musicians?

"I assigned people to different songs and it was in flux," he explained. "There were a couple of things where I wasn't sure who ought to sing it. So, in some cases, we had two or three people sing a song, and then chose the best version. It was a little vague to begin with. But, by and by, it took shape...

"I think Cale would love this album, to be honest, (even though) I know he was quirky, I know he would love it, deep down. But he’d say: 'Why didn’t you try and do the song differently?' Because that’s what he would do. If you ever heard him do his stuff live, it was completely different (from his records). But the point here is paying homage to the way he made his records, not just the way he sang and played, but the way he produced them."

By his own admission, the 1970s were a tumultuous decade for Clapton. He kicked his debilitating heroin habit, then became a heavy drinker. He became clean and sober in the late 1980s.

Yet, in good times and bad, he found solace in the music of Cale and what it represented to him.

"At that period in time, the three things to look forward to were the new J.J. album, the new Bob Marley album or the new Stevie Wonder album," Clapton said. "That was their period and that was what was going on. (Cale's albums) 'Naturally,' 'Troubadour' and 'Okie' came out in quick succession (in the 1970s). I was going in one direction, playing a lot of blues and rock... and J.J. was getting more and more, not introverted, but introspective, and more and more refined. And I was getting raunchier. When I did my 'Slowhand' (album in 1977), that's when I did (Cale's 1976 song) 'Cocaine.'

"And, after that, I lost track of the whole thing, and that had a lot to do with my lifestyle getting a little harried. But I came back to (Cale's music). And a lot of it was (because of) me changing my ways and the way I lived, and starting to see clearly and get a handle on things I could use for myself for an overall philosophy of life, and how to keep things on a smaller scale and more civilized.

"When I sought restoration or inspiration, often that was when J.J.'s (music) came through. Another time, I hadn't been thinking about music, and I went shopping at Tower Records in New York and found (his 1996 album), 'Guitar Man.' I put that on, and it took me all the way back and all the way forward. I thought: 'Aha! The deal is back on!"

Clapton's passion for Cale's music also took on an automotive dimension, according to guitar-maker Ferrington.

"George Harrison, who was one of Eric's closest friends, told me that every time Eric bought a new car that Cale's 'Naturally' album would get transferred to the CD player in the new car," Ferrington said. "It just kept hopping over to every new car Eric got. That's how much he loved that guy."

In his 2006 U-T San Diego interview, Cale described his reaction in 1970 after learning Clapton was going to record “After Midnight.” The song had flopped when Cale recorded it as a single in 1966.

“I thought,” Cale dryly recalled, “ `Well, that won’t go anywhere’.”

Upon hearing this anecdote, Clapton roared again with laughter.

“That says a lot about J.J,” Clapton said. “He was a curmudgeon! I’m a curmudgeon! And I could identify with him from day one. I could tell from his music he had a way of looking at the world that I could identify with.”